What Does Job 20:17 Mean in the King James?
He shall not see the rivers, the floods, the brooks of honey and butter.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The judgment reaches beyond withholding abundance: honey and butter flow before him, yet he is cut off from even seeing them.
THE MEANING
The verse places him before rivers, floods, and brooks of honey and butter, yet he does not see them. The Hebrew word for “see” can also describe experiencing good, so the denial closes off participation as well as sight. Abundance is present in the image, but he remains outside its reach.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that being surrounded by abundance guarantees access to it.
THE ROOT
יִרְאֶה
yirʾeh
GROWS FROM
ראה
rāʾāh: to see, look, or perceive; in some phrases, to experience or enjoy.
The verse denies more than a view: elsewhere, to “see good” means to experience good. Here the abundance remains in the picture, but he is shut out from the encounter.
ALSO GROWS
rāʾāh: to see, look, perceive
רָאָה
This is the verb whose action the verse denies.
nirʾāh: to appear, be seen
נִרְאָה
The same root joins the act of seeing with what comes into view, sharpening the verse’s image of exclusion.
נַחֲלֵי
naḥălē
GROWS FROM
נחל
naḥal: a stream or wadi; the same consonants also form a word-family for inheriting or possessing an allotment.
The brooks are named with נחל, a word-family that also speaks of inheritance and allotted possession. That echo lets the honey-and-butter streams read as an inheritance flowing before him, yet the verse says he cannot even see it.
ALSO GROWS
naḥal: a stream, wadi, or watercourse
נַחַל
This is the singular noun behind the brooks flowing with honey and butter.
naḥalah: inheritance, allotted possession
נַחֲלָה
The shared consonants connect the flowing streams with an inheritance he cannot access.
THE PATTERN
Abundance can surround a person while remaining outside their enjoyment.
A man to whom God hath given riches, wealth, and honour, so that he wanteth nothing for his soul of all that he desireth, yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof, but a stranger eateth it: this is vanity, and it is an evil disease.Thou shalt sow, but thou shalt not reap; thou shalt tread the olives, but thou shalt not anoint thee with oil; and sweet wine, but shalt not drink wine.But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?THE THREAD
What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good?Psalm 34 uses the same root for “see” and joins it to experiencing good. That makes Job’s “shall not see” a deeper exclusion: he is denied not only a sight of abundance, but the good that might be encountered through it.
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